Ugh, that ending is so perfect! Between this and the new issue of Sweet Paprika, this has really been a banner week for romance in comics

I'm torn on how to review this, because as the end of the first arc it's magnificent, but as the end of the series (which it appears to be?) it's abrupt and seems to abandon a fair amount of story in favor of bringing the main romance to a conclusion. I'll give it a 10 on its merits, because it was beautiful and made me cry, but as part of the larger story it has an abruptness that I usually attribute to comics which were cancelled rather than the intended ending to a 5-issue mini. Hopefully this sells well and the abandoned plot threads will be picked up in a sequel, because I am absolutely ready for 2 Thing 2 Truth

Tony Stark confirmed sub

I am 100% here for femboy Starfox who can make atom bombs out of love and struggles in the classic Marvel manner against his great weakness (that he's a bit mid). As someone who is also queer and a bit mid, I really appreciate the representation

This could be a perfect 10/10 if I were judging on the writing alone. This issue is a flawless gem, elaborating the already wonderfully-integrated human stakes with the best bit yet (I love the Sally/Memotaur gal pal plot more than words can say), at last clarifying what the Celestial's criteria are (and of course they fit perfectly with the themes of Gillen's Eternals) and most of all, the small moments. The judgment of the Deviants was such a powerful culmination of the work Gillen's been doing with them that I had to stop reading and have a cry. The moment the Celestial addresses the machine breaks the fourth wall with a slap-in-the-face abruptness that few people besides Moore or Morrison can accomplish. And, again, everything with the Memotaur is the sort of wonderful, profound absurdity that makes superhero comics truly great. Where this otherwise-extraordinary issue falls down is the art. I'm not familiar with Villanova's work, but his style here feels like the work of an artist snatched by the notoriously-brutal deadlines of monthly comics — in particular, his work on the next-to-last page of the Starfox subplot feels like he just had to give up and send in what he had. I can see the promise of his work, and the storytelling is clear enough that it doesn't derail the story, but in its execution this felt like the worst of JRJR's terrible, sloppy work on Action Comics. On balance, even with subpar art this is one of the best issues of not just the crossover, but of Gillen's entire time at Marvel. I'm not usually one for crossovers, but so far this one's a masterpiece.

Probably Gillen's weakest contribution to this event so far, this issue is really a scattered and slightly unfocused collection of pieces being moved into place for the finale. All the plots work fine, but they sprawl all over the place with no clear connection and Villanova's art continues to be a bit subpar. In large part, this suffers from being part 3 of a 3 part miniseries; it would make far more sense as part 7 of the main series. As it is Death to the Mutants feels more like a grab bag of important plot points that there wasn't room for in the main story than a coherent miniseries of its own. Still, despite being lifelong crossover-hater, even I can't complain too loud about a crossover whose worst issue rates an 8.5

Gillen's writing is up to his usual standards, though he's certainly done better, but as glad as I am to see Pasqual Ferry's art around, his character-focused art doesn't really sell the epic scale of Gillen's Eternals and meshes poorly with Dean White's colors. Not bad, per se, but it didn't meet my expectations.

Gillen's otherwise-great Eternals ends with a whimper rather than a bang, and Villanova's art isn't getting any better. Exquisite in its small moments, but it doesn't add up to too much

I could go on all day about how incredible Gillen is, but Schiti is the real star this issue, providing iconic panel after iconic panel, from the opening page (which was apparently vastly more ambitious than what Gillen wrote in the script) to "welcome to the Uni-mind" to "it's all in your hand" to that last page. Schiti's up there with McKelvie and Mora on the list of artists who really make Gillen's huge moments pop

As a noted crossover-hater, I've never said these words in this order before in 35 years of reading comics, but: this crossover was incredible

Absolutely one of the greatest Superman stories of all time

I'd say it's more of a Naomi story than a Superman one, but it doesn't add anything to Naomi either so I'm not sure what the point was. I could have been fine with a story that was centered on Naomi, but nothing of any interest or consequence happens here. The whole thing is just an excuse for Bendis to trot out his old trick of telling the story through the reactions of onlookers but there's clearly no new territory there for him anymore.

This is hands-down the most frustrating issue of this run yet. This issue is filled with wonderful moments — the space diner at the beginning is the sort of thing I'd actually hoped for from a Bendis Superman, the "profits?" twist made me laugh out loud, and the climax is suitably exciting — but the pacing is leaden and the art looks like it was done by a 9-year-old rather than one of the medium's most beloved artists. Honestly, I wish Bendis was less famous so they could let him just play to his strengths and do a Daily Planet focused spinoff. Instead, this run has been a disappointing mess and I'm relieved that it'll be over soon.

I have been less consistently sour on Bendis's Superman than most here - I'll never understand spending all that money on something you know you'll hate - but wow this is absolutely incoherent. The only good thing in the issue was just a restatement of the conclusion to Fraction & Lieber's Jimmy Olsen, and if there was ever an issue that did not benefit from reminding you of better Superman stories, this is it. I never expected Superman to be a title that played to Bendis's strengths as a writer, but this is such a mess that it's hard to remember that it was done by a writer who HAS strengths — or an artist, for that matter. What happened to JRJR's once-considerable storytelling skills? There's one panel that's impossible to see as anything other than Supergirl holding Superman's shed skin — which might be creepy, but it's hard not to wish I was reading that story instead, it couldn't be worse than this shambling catastrophe.

Honestly, this was a pleasant but unremarkable ending to a run that rarely aimed higher than pleasant but unremarkable (and rarely even reached that low bar). I might have even liked it if JRJR hadn't drawn the issue with his feet whilst drunk and blindfolded. Regardless, at least this ill-starred run is finally over. Don't know as I'm excited about the incoming creative team, but they've got nowhere to go but up from here.

Hey, I loved this! I honestly was lukewarm on the idea of a PK Johnson Superman, but so far I'm pretty into this. It's nice to see some ambition and heart in this book after the disappointing Bendis years Treating Superman as being the age at which one's son is 16 is a perfectly good and interesting direction to go with the awkward leftover of aged-up Jon, and it plays to PKJ's strengths. Also, I was actually was pretty into Hester's art here — that cyborg-homunculus thing in the later pages wouldn't be out of place in a Mignola comic. (Rating is for the main story, though the Midnighter backup was the best of the Infinite Frontier backups that I've read so far, although I'm still not convinced that those are worth the extra dollar)

Fantastic. Just a really top-notch expression of who Superman is. "Not more... but not less" is the sort of line that has kept me reading Superman comics for 35 years now.

Incredible art, PKJ's top-notch worldbuilding makes Warworld feel three-dimensional, and how these characters act on the society and how it acts on them is endlessly compelling. PKJ's run has had its ups and downs, but since the team left Earth he's really been in his element.

PKJ's deep understanding of why Superman is wonderful remains a joy to read issue after issue, and Federici's visuals are stunning (though there was one page I had to stare at a moment before I realized which directions the panels were meant to be read in). Really the best Superman arc in many years

The reset button gets pressed in the tediously generic way that these things always do, though "anyone who learns his identity now gets a stroke" is a lousy new addition. (Surely Batman's doomed, then?) And the Lex-Superman scene was truly awful: Lex's motivations made little sense, his plan was idiotic and made him look like a bumbling fool, and his dialogue was frequently off-model. At least the art was nice, it's got that going for it.

Definitely enjoyed the Power Girl backup the most of these three stories, but they're all fine

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This comic was always a touch overcooked and not as engaging as it should be, but getting the last issue of the first story a year after its predecessor is murder on the pacing. And apparently this is going to be collected in the second trade rather than the first? I want to love this comic, but so far it's just an interesting misfire.

The psychedelic arbitrariness of Casey's AoS was always part of its charm for me. King Shark just randomly wanders out wearing Black Canary fishnets and no one even mentions it. (In all fairness, he looks great in them)

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this, knowing nothing about Injustice nor having ever particularly wanted to, but it worked for me. Bringing Ultraman into this is a solid emotional hook and it's nice to see Jon's Bendis-era backstory (whatever one might think of it) as a thing with lasting ramifications for the character, something we haven't seen much of since the story was told. And Clayton Henry's a good, reliable choice for this comic. A nice start!

Wow I was so excited for this comic and... yeah, it's terrible, actually. Joe Casey is desperately trying to write a modern teenager and the result is one of those cringe-inducing affairs where an adult makes it clear that they haven't spoken to a teenager since they were in high school. It reads like he made a list of every slang term employed by anyone under 40 in the last ten years and wanted to get every single one of them into the comic so we could all see how "down with the kids" he is. Casey tries to have America not-Chavez distinguish herself from Millennials, but he doesn't seem clear on what the distinction is between the generations. Most notably, the constant use of #hashtags for their own sake, which makes for both an unreadable experience, and is a thing many Gen Z'ers have specifically described as something they find obnoxious about Millennials. I'll throw on a couple points for the art because Dustin Nguyen never disappoints, but it's really hard to recommend this.

Just Some Guy: 7.5 Sinister 60th: 9 Spider-Man vs. Conspiratron: 2 The Kid's Got a Good Eye: 7.5 In The Flesh: 8 Slaves of the Witch Queen: 9.5 You Get It: 10 With Great Power...: 10

This was nothing unmissable and the art is a dreadful collection of poor imitations of great Spider-Man artists, but ultimately this comic was a hoot and I'm glad I didn't skip it.

DeMatties was just so far above and beyond everyone else writing Spider-Man in the 90's. It's almost surreal to go from the crude, edgy angst in the other three titles to DeMatties & Bagley's eloquent psychodrama

While I respect DeFalco & Starkings's ambition in experimenting with the new freedoms of digital lettering, Delilah has the most 𝓞𝓑𝓝𝓞𝓧𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 speech pattern in 𝓗𝓘𝓢𝓣𝓞𝓡𝓨

Apparently they decided that "detective who's determined to prove that Spider-Man murdered a guy" was the best part of the Clone Saga because we're not even finished yet and they're already setting up another one

The dialogue was a little rough in places, but Ziglar writes Otto & May's doomed romance well enough to make that more than forgivable. It doesn't seem to have been everyone's cup of tea, but I thought this was an absolute delight

A very effective little horror story, and what a cover! Art Adams has been doing some of the best work of his career on these covers

The story was good, and it's nice to feel like Beyond is going somewhere finally, but Michael Dowling was the completely wrong artist for an all-action story

The plot's a bit thin and its purpose in the larger storyline unclear, but Thorne has an excellent handle on who Hobie is and why he's interesting and I'd gladly read more pairings of this character and writer

This one's a bizarre hodgepodge of things that have nothing in common except that they're all happening at Beyond: first, #92's cliffhanger with the Daughters of the Dragon and Morbius is resolved in just 3 pages, then Monica Rambeau & Aaron Stack in a Nextwave homage that's OK but not as good as one would hope Jed McKay doing Nextwave would be, then inept Beyond employee Doug in a scene that actually IS funny enough to be something out of Nextwave, then a couple pages of the Slingers, then a couple pages of Queen Goblin, and finally, a one-page followup with Morbius. None of the scenes have anything to do with one another, and nothing really sticks around long enough to mean anything. I can't help but wonder if this was meant to be 3-5 .BEY issues originally and then got all shoved into one. As it is, it's a mess.

What a frustratingly ambiguous read. Full of great moments, but less than the sum of its parts. It's hard to imagine that Peter genuinely couldn't think of the kind and wise words Ben needed to make better choices, and Ben felt more like a sulky teenager than (as he has in Wells's previous issues) a damaged and traumatized person trying to do his best; that whole scene felt forced for the sake of getting a big fight in. As regards (spoiler!) evil-or-antihero Ben, I'm willing to see where Wells is going with this, but it'd be nice to see poor Ben get a break someday and it's an unsatisfying place to finish his story. As a conclusion to Beyond this issue is rather inconclusive and underpowered, very "rocks fall, everyone dies". Still, if the Beyond era was ultimately a misfire, at least it was an interesting and ambitious failure; those are always more fun to read than uninteresting and unambitious successes.

Properly interesting start. I suppose if you don't like Peter being a perpetual loser it won't be your cup of tea (but then, neither will basically any ASM era except the early years of Slott's run) but I'm intrigued as to what happened in the gap, and certainly doomed losers are what Zeb Wells does better than anyone. JRJR is quite a few years out from his heyday, but he holds it together well enough here — it's nowhere near what his art once was, but neither is it the catastrophe his DC work was either. I'm excited to see where we're going with this one.

Perfectly good on its own merits — not quite as interesting or exciting as the first issue, but fine — but the story is so clearly unrelated to the cover and solicit that I assume there must have been some sort of last-minute behind the scenes stuff going on. If you're looking for what happened between Peter & MJ... well, the cover is her only appearance in this issue

Now this, this is what Spider-Man is supposed to be: pushing past extraordinary odds to wrestle with two crises in two parts of the city because maybe he can't win, but he definitely can't give up — only to find that even when he wins he loses. And the twist with Tombstone is classic Zeb Wells, no one does villains like he does. JRJR has his good moments and his bad moments, but he holds it together as well as he ever does these days. On balance, this run is everything I hoped it would be

Huh, I mostly don't see what all y'all are mad about; I thought this story was all kinds of fun! McGuinness delivers some gorgeous art, the main plot is charming and a lovely old-school-style restatement of (some of) what makes Peter special, I loved the subplot with Peter's relationship with the arms, and if there's anything this book was missing before now, it's Jonah. (Also, I always liked Anna Maria and I'm glad to see her pop her head back in.) The backups by Kibblesmith/Lopez and Slott/Martin were pleasant little hors d'ouvres. In fact, I'd have considered this issue an easy 10 if I didn't have 2 complaints about it. One, the subplot where Felicia and Bobbi meet and spend the whole issue bickering about a guy neither of them is even dating is a wildly outdated trope, sexist, and cheapens a character who's otherwise having a career high under McKay. Two, I appreciate that Marvel is nostalgic for all the money they made off the Obama issue 14 years ago (that's right, 2008 was 14 years ago — my fellow middle-aged nerds, we are old as balls) and I've no doubt there's pressure from Disney to make it happen again, but it's time to let it go. Real life guest stars' presence in comics is without exception cheap and they're always drawn in a way that makes them visibly out of place with the fictional characters around them in an uncanny valley way. Still, I really enjoyed this issue, and this run continues to be the best Spider-Man run since Zdarsky.

Hm. Didn't love this one; Peter having a weird night at the Gala was the best part. This issue coming months after the Gala ran in other comics makes it feel strange and even dated, I'm officially losing patience with the "what happened between Peter & MJ?" story (which has started to spin its wheels a bit), and I'll just never find Evil One-dimensional Supervillain Moira interesting. Patrick Gleason makes it look great, of course, but this felt pretty inessential, an outdated crossover intruding on the story and adding nothing.

Another crossover issue, but this one plays to both Wells's and Dragotta's strengths the result is a beautiful and deeply-felt porrait of Peter, full of tenderness, humor and insight. Jonah's reaction to judgment was fun and Peter's response to it is lovely in its grace, and both Aunt May's experience of judgment and the ending made me tear up. And I really appreciate how Wells gets into ordinary people trying to juice their numbers at the last moment, a realistic detail that we haven't seen much of this crossover. This one's a gem.

Great issue! Most of all, I think this was JRJR's best comic in years, and Marcio Menyz does some incredibly beautiful and evocative work on the colors. Still not really sold on rekindling the Felicia/Peter romance, but I'm willing to see where they're going with it

Hm, not quite what I'd hoped for. The dark humor of Inferno would seem like something that Wells would be right at home with, but we don't get a ton of it because we're too busy with a subpar fight between Spider-Man and a stupid Venom (apparently we'll get some explanation for this later, but "Venom is like his old bad guy self but dumb" is hardly a compelling lead-in). Ben and Peter meeting for the first time since Beyond! only drives home how undermotivated Ben's villain turn seems. And Ed McGuinness's art is fine (this isn't his best work, but second-rate McGuinness is still damn good) but his bright, cartoony style is the exact opposite of what this crossover calls for.

Still not really convinced by Ben's latest villain turn, but taken on its merits this was an OK superhero fight. The best thing here is McGuinness, whose art is much better suited to a fight scene than the goofiness of Inferno. If that excellent last page is any indication, McGuinness's Limbo is going to be even better (and it promises anything other than "Spider-Man vs. ____", which I'm already bored of)

THERE we go! After two rather disappointing issues, at long last this is the sort of nonsense I wanted from Wells & McGuinness doing an Inferno pastiche. Delightful

Rek-Rap is a delight and so was JJJ convincing the demons that he's one of them just by being himself, but it's hard to miss that this crossover is kind of all over the place, shapeless, uneven and weirdly paced

Kelly on Spider-Man is always a joy, but the issue was marred by some uncharacteristically awful art by the Dodsons — so many missing faces and mangled fingers you'd think it was generated by AI.

Lots of the usual fun ideas and banter from Kelly, but the Dodsons turn in messy rush job art that makes the comic borderline unreadable. Such is the way of fill-ins, I suppose.

So there is a lot to like here: Wells's pacing is masterful and JRJR hits far more often than he misses (the kids are a little weird looking, but kids in comics so often are). But after a year of the central hook of this series being WHAT DID PETER DO, this story is weighted with more than it can carry. There's a sense of the epic, but anchoring it to a minor 15-year-old story that was more memorable for Bachalo than Wells doesn't help and it doesn't hit hard enough to justify 20 issues of buildup — at least not yet. I'm still ready to be convinced; we'll see how we go as this arc goes on

This issue caught my interest a bit more than the previous issue, even as it lurches away from the epic scale of part 1 into exposition. I'm particularly intrigued by the revelation that Paul is more than just a generic NPC there to provide angst-fodder for Peter. As you can tell from the cover, Bachalo's design for the villain plays very well with JRJR's style (even as there's a couple of the weird, unsuccessful panels we've come to expect from his recent work). I'm still not convinced that this pays off 20 issues of buildup or that it was a good idea to have all that buildup be a followup to a minor and rather mid story from 15 years ago, but on its own this issue is fine and I'm at least interested to see where they're going with this.

This definitely benefited from diminished expectations — I didn't love the first two parts of this story, and I had seen the reviews were iffy — but honestly, it was pretty solid. The worst things I can say about it is that it didn't give us much new info on the gap (though the last page was a nice detail to fill in) and that JRJR's art is as inconsistent as usual. Otherwise, a perfectly good "hero struggles alone with the whole world against him and the clock ticking" issue; satisfyingly propulsive and energetic. Apparently not everyone's cup of tea, but I liked it.

Not as much without its charm as the Outrage Brigade would have you believe — Wells's FF is delightful — but there's not really much going on here either. Mostly this just feels like a reiteration of things that happened last issue, and while I was willing to defend one issue of "Peter fights everyone to get back to MJ", I didn't walk away from this convinced that it needed two.

This could have been an OK issue if I cared even a little bit about Paul and Rabin, but they're both really just ciphers to make the plot go where it needs to, and the plot isn't interesting or meaningful enough to bear the weight alone. It's not a bad explanation of where MJ's new family came from, but it's not a terribly involving one either

"I liked this universe because it's the one that didn't have me in it" Hard same, Paul, hard same Up until now I've been a moderate on Wells & JRJR's run, but this is the biggest trainwreck since the BatWedding. The payoff of 25 issues — that's $100 worth of comics — is a soulless marketing decision and continuity reshuffle pretending to be an emotional arc for a character who's barely been in this comic. It's competently executed and JRJR does fine work, but what does competence matter for something this empty and cynical?

Another miss from a comic that's regularly close enough to good stories to keep me reading, but usually far enough to not make me feel like it's worthwhile. There's fun ideas here — in particular, I liked the JJJ/arms relationship — but none of it really comes together for something meaningful, and tonally this story is all over the place, starting off last issue with an attempt to provide emotional weight to the empty spectacle of Kamala's temporary demise and then slouching into comedy that feels like it should be funnier than it is here. I've been cutting down my pull list a bit, and it might be time to let this one go. This series has never been as bad as the hate-readers say, but more often than not it hasn't quite worked either, and 28 issues in I think I'm done waiting for it to turn a corner.

Oh this was good! I'd walked away from this comic a while ago, but this issue caught my eye and I decided to give the title another shot, and I'm glad I did. This issue definitely benefits from Gleason's superb art papering over the cracks in Wells's script in places, particularly the scenes with Michele & Felicia (unsurprising, since the romantic subplots have always been Wells's weak spot on this title), but at its best, Wells's script sings with the sort of psychodrama he does so well.

Al Ewing doing Grant Morrison with one hand and Stan Lee with the other is all I really ask for in this world

What a wonderful surprise! I was braced for another uninteresting and inconsequential crossover mini that I try for one issue and drop, but this issue really went above and beyond. Lanzing and Kelly don't do anything shocking or new, but I've always got time for old-school meat-and-potatoes superheroics. Barry & Arthur's personalities are clear and meaningful parts of the story, the world-threatening crisis is suitably awe-inspiring, and the characterization is subtle and complex: Flash & Aquaman feel real and human. Add attractive art and effective storytelling from Georgiev, and this is actually a very promising start.

Beautiful meat & potatoes superheroics from a top-notch team. I almost skipped this one, writing it off as another forgettable, marginal miniseries pumped out for quick cash, but I'm so glad I didn't. If you like PKJ's Action Comics, give this little gem of a book a go. It won't let you down.

DeConnick's heartfelt character work remains strong enough to be worth the price of admission in itself: Mera's question to Vulko is vulnerable in sweet in just the right way and Black Manta's tension with his father-bot is fascinating and engaging. But it's all dragged down slightly by pacing that doesn't agree with a monthly schedule (though I'm sure it'll be fine in the trade) and the burden of being tied to a mega-crossover that seems designed to be inscrutable to people just trying to read the books they like: I only know the symbol in the sky is anything to do with Year of the Villain because the same non-sequitur showed up in another comic this week. Still, imperfect pacing and the usual crossover nonsense isn't worth skipping what remains one of the best superhero books on the market right now.

Gorgeous art, great characters, a plot that's coming together quite quickly now, and manages to catch the feeling of living under COVID with the debate about the dangers of bringing Andy to the hospital without feeling clumsy or heavyhanded. One of the best issues of a run that continues to be everything I could have hoped for.

Intimate, funny and sweet with a magnificently clear vision of who each character is. A perfect one-off showcase for DeConnick's generally excellent run on this book, and the addition of Vita Ayala as a co-writer only sharpens the book's virtues. Highly recommended.

What a fun, sweet little comic! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I liked this quite a bit

After a good start, this one's starting to lose steam a bit unfortunately

Better than the previous issue; not as good as the first couple. This one continues to be a disappointment for me in its back half.

"I need to call Frankenstein on Mars" Superhero comics are so great

This was pretty solid, although honestly it's a weird structural choice to have an important detail of the plot of Trial of the Amazons done three months later in a one-shot whose cover gives no indication that it's part of the crossover

Scarlet Witch got my hopes up that Orlando's days of wasted potential were behind him, but no, here we are again. As always happens when one does reruns of the Friends of Humanity, Orchis is now just mowing down non-mutant civilians in the streets and destroying landmarks while cackling and stroking their evil mustaches, because the subtlety and humanity of Hickman's hate group is completely gone. (Does no one in any of these groups know the word "optics"??) The dialogue is dreadful, with people having debates about the ethics of hunting mutants in the streets while running in terror. I'm not bothered by the kiss scene because it implies that Bobby & Romeo aren't monogamous (honestly, as a woman with a wife and a boyfriend, I can confirm it's not that unusual in the LGBT community) but it comes out of nowhere and in context it's ultimately kinda just weird. And nothing in particular happens in this issue except a fight scene and an explanation of how Bobby survived the Gala. Carratu at least makes it look pretty — he's kind of aping Pepe Larraz, but I'm not going to criticize someone for swiping from the best if they get away with it. Nevertheless, I didn't see much to convince me to read the next issue.

Oh I loved this one! A completely inessential crossover tie-in in which Hawkeye struggles with the question of how he, and humans as a whole, should be judged. Great jokes (TILF made me laugh out loud), wonderful character work, and perfect humble himbo characterization for Clint. I have intentionally not read a comic drawn by Greg Land in about a decade, so imagine my surprise when his work here wasn't actually bad. Not incredible, but competent — no panel felt like it was lazily traced from porn, and the faces had a little definition. A very pleasant surprise all around

Intensely middle chapter-y in a way that would tempt me to call it awkwardly paced for a floppy if there was scene or even a single panel in this comic I would want to be without, but there is not

Hey this issue was all kinds of fun! This series has a strong voice that it hadn't entirely succeeded at getting a handle on in previous issues, but this month everything clicks and it's a hoot

Now that this comic has properly found its feet, I am having so much fun with it! Also, I love the robot dog, and Bondo remains the real all-star of this series

Now that this series has really found its feet, it's a consistent source of fun. Cloonrad write Babs & Dick's relationship so well I rather wish he was in this title as often as she's in his. And Robbi Rodriguez, whose style has all the best things that Jorge Corona's does with none of the shortcomings, is so perfect for this title that I went looking for solicits hoping that he's the new regular penciller. (I regret to inform you he is not.)

A perfectly pleasant little downtime issue. Steph and Cass's day at the library is charming, and I'm delighted to see someone remember that Alysia exists and is nominally Babs' best non-superhero friend. The anti-vigilante rant from Montoya would probably work better in the mouth of someone who isn't literally The Question, but taken on its own merits its fine. Neil Googe does some solid work, though in places he seems to be trying to match Corona's style, and while I appreciate the idea of trying to give this book artistic consistency it doesn't really work

The basic idea is sound, but splitting the party isn't doing this book any favors — in particular, Babs's story seems like filler that's there for no other reason than to give her something to do. Jonathan Case has a nice Allred-like style, but his storytelling is hit and miss. Still, it's better than that mess of a cover. In the end, it's hard not to conclude that Cloonrad's Batgirls are more fun together than they are solo

Silent issues are notoriously hard to pull off, and even harder to find a good reason for (remember when Marvel mandated a whole month of them and no one could make it worth the bother except Morrison/Quitely?) so massive credit to all involved for pulling it off so well. Particular credit goes to Jonathan Case, who turned in some truly incredible work on the art and colors this issue. I've enjoyed Batgirls in general, but this is just on another level; this comic was like ordering fast food and finding out they sent you filet mignon

"I never will" definitely made me tear up a bit

Robbi Rodriguez turning in some really fantastic work here

Does your heart race when you see JRJR's typically stunning depiction of Bane rising above the word "SHOWDOWN!"? Well don't you worry your nerves, it's a false alarm. This is just another issue of people meandering about explaining the plot to one another. Tom King's run might be ending sooner than was meant to, but it's definitely ending later than it should have.

My least favorite issue of my least favorite storyline of a run that at its best was my favorite Batman run of the 2010's. Batman and Catwoman beat Bane with an uncharacteristically cheap trick which King insists on having mostly happen off panel while the character explain to the audience what the comic doesn't show. And the big showdown itself is static, anticlimactic, and too easy, not in any way feeling like the payoff to 7 issues of buildup, much less the payoff to 81 issues of buildup but also happening weirdly abruptly. And there's a *ninth* part to this? Really? I'm really only reading this comic out of sunk cost now, each issue is a bigger disappointment than the last.

This could have been a really poignant issue if City of Bane weren't so interminably long that I don't care even when it's good anymore. Lovely art though.

Oh now that was good. I've been a little indifferent to Tynion's run so far, and I'm still of the opinion that Punchline is empty hype, but the pieces all fall into place quite tidily here. The ending twist isn't unexpected by the time it comes, but Tynion & March sell it well enough that I'm eager to see where they're going next, and it's been an awfully long while since I could say that about an issue of Batman.

My big takeaway is that Leonardo Romero is great. I loved his work on Hawkeye and Shuri, and hadn't seen him around in a minute

I hadn't read this book in a few but decided to give it another try. The story is definitely more engaging, but it's hard to ignore how much more effective things like the skeleton Jim Gordon would have been in Jiminez's style. Hawthorne's work is fine, but it doesn't pack much of a punch and undersells things like that throughout.

It's pretty good fanservice, but Zdarsky sets the bar so much higher in his best work that it's a little disappointing that that's all he's got for Batman

Tender and cool, absurd and intimate, Tom King's swan song here provides a reminder of what made his run so good at its best as his final issues on the monthly drag on endlessly into his worst excesses. A solid farewell, and frankly the best thing King has written all year.

A Serious House: 6.5 Family Ties: 8 The Symbol: 5.5 Ashes of Eden: 1 Clown Hunt: 7

Federici's art is stunning, but otherwise this is five bucks for forty pages of the kind of epilogue comics usually do in three or four pages: a cash grab epilogue to an event that was never firing on all cylinders. For completists only.

The story continues to be meandering and incoherent, but damn if Liam Sharp doesn't make muddled stasis look good

I've tried really hard to like this series, but this is it for me. I'm just never going to care about this mess or buy Selina and the Joker being pals, and when DC is putting out 800 bat books a month it's hard to justify continuing to purchase one I just don't like. King's Batman started so well five years ago that it's really a shame that it's ending like this.

Clever and charming. I'm really going to miss this book

A bit of a miss for me. Nice art, but the story is insubstantial, and PKJ seems ill at ease with Morrison's Authority — Midnighter has to be nerfed to make Batman look cool, Natasha is barely there and the only thing that qualifies as a character moment is Midnighter conceding that Batman is cooler than him. As a fan of Morrison's Authority and PKJ's Action Comics I was really hoping for more from this.

Everything I'd hoped for and then some! Just a big, juicy slab of old-school superheroic joy. Tamra Bonvillain delivers her usual gorgeous colors, Mark Waid is on top of his game (has there ever been a more quintessentially Mark Waid moment in comics than the Weaponeers of Qward being invoked for an "It tickles!" reference?), but the real star is Dan Mora who manages to surpass even his own usual high standards. Just a joy from cover to cover

A fun little old school mystery, even if the "lost in time" plot feels pretty meaningless since Dick is only actually lost for about two pages. Wonderful art by Travis Moore, who draws the most beautiful men in comics.

Delightful, and a handy reminder that Dan Mora's not the only thing to like about this book. Given the many comic book relationships that have little substance or cause beyond the writer pairing characters off, I'm always a fan of superheroes going on dates and realizing they're completely wrong for one another, and Waid & Lupacchino do it with charm, wit and tender insight. Probably my favorite issue of the series so far

Incredible art even by Mora & Bonvillain's usual stratospheric standards, but I just haven't found the back half of this story terribly engaging or memorable

The Batman's Grave is a frustrating read. The entire first half is ominous and terrible, placing Batman so firmly in the tradition of Warren Ellis's doomed detectives that it's strange that this is his first major project with the character. But after a dozen flawless pages, the story sinks under the weight of an incoherently-narrated investigation. I haven't got a clue what's supposed to be happening at the issue's end, and it's not because Hitch's art is anything less than clear and expressive.

Scarcely a comic, though it looks beautiful and Ellis writes a delightful Alfred. But it's over before it starts, barely making it through a well-choreographed but unremarkable fight scene, an explanation of who Batman was hitting, and a scene with Alfred which ends arbitrarily midway through as though the comic just ran out of pages. This is the sort of super-decompressed stuff Ellis used to do when he was "writing for the trade", back when it was assumed that singles were a historical artifact which just hadn't died yet and what mattered was how it would look as a trade. And as a trade it probly WILL be great, but as a single issue it's a waste of $3.99. Skip this one and come back next month; you didn't miss much.

And I'm still reading this series for some reason, despite one big new reason to walk away having come up since the last issue. But here I am, and... well, it's not great. Aside from Bryan Hitch's art, which is always good in the action sequences, Alfred is still really the only good thing about this issue, as has been true of most of this series. Really, this comic would be much better if it dropped everything else in favor of having Alfred say catty things to Batman for 19 pages a month. Otherwise, we've got a Batman who uses torture and is cool with the GCPD murdering suspects in custody (and with Commissioner Gordon turning a blind eye to the killing) despite his specific rationale for going after the villain is that he doesn't approve of killing regardless of guilt of innocence. Could Ellis have possibly written a more ill-timed story? Maybe I'm being unkind and that's actually going somewhere, but if so it would be the first thing in this comic that was. I probly won't be back for #9.

Tom King has done so many stories that stay too long and get lost in themselves that it's easy to forget that he can do some really excellent work if his worst tendencies are curbed. Dropping the Riddler into Dead Poets Society is a really inspired take on his backstory, and while many attempts to make the traditionally goofy Riddler a terrifying sociopath are joyless and edgy, King & Gerads really hit the bullseye here. Maybe King should stick to one shots for a bit; the format clearly brings out the best in him.

Finally an installment of this series that lives up to expectations! I'd been starting to lose hope

What a mixed bag. On one hand, it's loaded with sapphic romance, fits a fair amount of stuff in without feeling garbled or rushed, and features lots of Excalibur characters I love but don't see much like Pete Wisdom and Faiza Hussain. On the other, it really doesn't feel like Howard has anything new to say about everyone being a skeptic of Betsy and the other plots are starting to feel like they're spinning their wheels as well, the romance is decidedly mid and never really gives us a clear idea of what these two love about one another, and though the Fury is a concept that was always going to deliver diminishing returns if it was used more than once, turning it into a thing that can be defeated in two pages begs the question of why one is even using the Fury in the first place. Vasco Georgiev, whose art impressed me on last year's Voidsong, turns in some fine panels, particularly of Rachel, but also some slightly off-looking mouths that bothered me a bit. This issue doesn't offer much that we haven't already seen and failed to convince me that there's another series's worth of stuff to do here — but despite that I enjoyed it enough that I'm going to stick with it and see if it goes anywhere from here.

A big improvement in the second issue as the plot kicking into action brings focus to the story and highlights the stronger parts of the book for a fun Captain Carter crossover

After an awkward start, Howard & Georgiev finally hit their full stride with this book

Another series finding its feet just in time for another rushed conclusion at issue 5. I haven't a clue why Marvel thinks constantly restarting and cancelling their lower-selling X titles is a good idea, but I wish they'd get over it because it makes for some terribly unsatisfying reading

More charming and coherent than it has any right to be, being the finale to three series each with their own direction and welter of subplots. But there's definitely stuff that gets garbled in the rush — in particular, it's a shame there wasn't more time to explore Rachel's status quo, because "Askani" was always a concept void of meaning and "lesbrarian of the Sacred Timeline" sounds like a fun direction for Rachel, but it was wedged in so hastily that there just wasn't time to make it clear. Ultimately, these last two series were shoved out and cancelled so fast that they feel like cliff's notes for series rather than stories in their own right, much as I enjoyed what little we got of this one

Ugh Jed McKay's Black Cat is SO GOOD. My only complaint about this issue is that there isn't enough of it. I want a full-length MJ/Black Cat series by this creative team; to judge from this issue it would be a masterpiece.

I love BoP, I loved Thompson & the chronically-underrated Romero's Hawkeye, and anything Bellaire colors is going to look amazing, so at a time when I've been feeling more like spending my leisure time playing BG3 than reading comics I was pretty excited for this book. But it's a bit of a slow start, lots of gathering the team stuff and while none of it is bad, Harley is the only character who really shines here (particularly in a flashback where Cass's worldview is used to magnificent effect to highlight Harley's strengths). It's not a bad start at all, but this issue isn't the most exciting thing any of the involved creators have done. A good start, but not a great one. Still, the cliffhanger is solid, and I'm optimistic that now that the setup is out of the way things will pick up in the next issue.

Nobody can make a full issue of two guys hitting one another compelling, intriguing and insightful like Priest, and Sandoval is turning in some incredible work on this series

Another fine issue, though definitely brought down by the absence of Sandoval

Juni Ba's folktale really steals the show, but the main story is solid too

Black Widow comics have always been maddening to me. Natasha is one of the best characters in the Marvel universe, and her comics always have incredible artists working on them, but for whatever reason the writing is almost always below par. But now that we're done with the first arc I can confirm: this is the Black Widow comic I've been waiting for. This issue was the best comic I've read all year, and I can't wait for issue 6.

Holy fuck that cliffhanger! Thompson & Casagrande continue to deliver what is hands down the best Black Widow book ever

This was one of the best comics on the shelves, and it should have run forever. I've been reading superhero comics long enough to know they get cancelled all the time, but this one hurts

The story is a competent but unremarkable Tynion-style horror comic, but Hayden Sherman's art is something really special

Hm. I was excited for this, but now that I've read the first issue, I'm not sure how I feel about it yet and that's basically down to pacing — this issue doesn't do an awful lot except introduce some of the main characters and confirm that Holocaust is floating around being awful. ChrisCross has never turned in a bad comic, but he's definitely done better. No rating because I could definitely see this being something I get into as it goes on, but as a first issue it's pretty slight. The original Blood Syndicate came out of the gate guns blazing; this, by contrast, is really just prelude.

I had very, very low expectations for this series — I don't think anyone has nostalgia for Jurgens's JL run, and it's been years since he did anything anyone had enthusiasm for — but actually, this is great. It's maybe not bwa-ha-ha funny, but the jokes hit well enough, Jurgens gets wonderful mileage out of Blue & Gold's "lovable losers" partnership, and everything looks great when Ryan Sook draws it. If the mini stays this good, I'd be delighted to read an ongoing!

Gorgeous art, but the story adds nothing to the series; it feels like the sort of mildly diverting filler you'd find in an annual or a special rather than the middle of a miniseries. Still, it does look fantastic, and it's fine for what it is.

It's perfectly OK (if not up to the standards of the earlier issues), but whose idea was it to pair Paul Pelletier with Phil Hester for the art fill-in? Their styles clash terribly, and neither really resembles Sook. And we seem to have abandoned the humor entirely, paring it back to competent but unremarkable old-school superheroics. This series started out better than I expected, but in the back half it's come apart quite a bit

This was a perfectly fun little comic, but it wasn't desperately memorable and the guest stars were more interesting and entertaining than the protagonist. I've never found Cable interesting and this didn't move the needle for me — but given the number of Liefeld references in here I assume I'm not the target audience anyway.

The Peggy/Bucky showdown is by far the more interesting half of this issue, but it all looks great thanks to Carnero's beautiful storytelling

The art is so beautiful, the visual drama so intense, and the storytelling so clear that it handily carries the issue where the writing stumbles. This isn't Kelly & Lanzig's best issue, but it's a wonderful showcase for Carmen Carnero and Nolan Woodward's talents

A fun little romp! McKelvie's name on the cover maybe leads one to expect more from the art than Cresta can deliver, but this is a fun "What If?"-style setup with good action and a likeable main character. I'm interested to see where it's going

Definitely the best issue of this mini so far

What a pleasure this series has been! I'd really like to see more of Peggy and her team

A satisfying ending to Thompson & Carnero's run on the comic that brings everything together for the big finale of volume 2. The character work is still sharp and I'll miss Carnero's Carol. It nothing that's going to change the world, but it's rock solid superhero drama that's got me ready for whatever Thompson & Garbett and bringing us next month.

Simultaneously a quiet downtime between arcs issue and an emotional rollercoaster, this issue really drives home how Kelly Thompson is one of the best in the business, and Julius Ohta's art is splendid

This issue was a joy, and Frigeri's art and Bellaire's colors are some of the best work I've seen all year

Even if I didn't love the rest of the comic — and I do — as someone about to celebrate 15 years on the wagon, the bit where Carol realizes that even in her fantasies she's staying sober grabbed me so hard that this would qualify for a 9 on that alone

A fine capstone to the best Carol Danvers run of all time, and Pina and Lopez bring their a-game. I'm incredibly excited to see Kelly Thompson do Birds of Prey, but I'm really going to miss this one. This being the ultra-rare modern comic that makes it to issue #50, I take it I'm not alone there!

Jones's art just gets better and better, but her writing? Not so much.

Maybe I'm just ready for anything new after the disappointing slog of Jones's run, but I thought this was a great start for Ram V, the art was top-notch in all three stories, and I'm eager to get back to looking forward to new issues of Catwoman again

A meticulously-constructed thrill ride with beautiful art. I wandered off from this book after Jones' disappointing run, this issue makes me really satisfied with my decision to come back.

A great finish to the best Catwoman run in years, with lovely art to boot. I'm looking forward to Tini Howard's run, but honestly I wish Ram V could have stayed much longer because his Catwoman has been great

I was expecting good things out of this, and the first issue surpasses them majestically. In particular, the art is amazing. Nico Leon really outdoes himself with the art and his Selena is breathtakingly beautiful (as she should be), and Jordie Bellaire remains one of the best colorists in the business. The setup is classic without feeling stale, and the return of Eiko from Genevieve Valentine's underappreciated run is very welcome. I'm really excited about this one!

UGH THIS COMIC IS SO GOOD. I've only read a couple of this week's comics and I already know Selina prancing around in the mask is the best thing I'm going to read this week — Nico Leon has absolutely infectious fun with it

If you'd told me ten years ago that in 2022 we'd be getting a Catwoman comic with a very realistic portrait of queer female friends who are kinda gay for each other but already taken but still down to cuddle in bed and do roller derby, I'd have mistakenly assumed that the 2020's were going to be really great and fun. I appreciate this comic so much!

This is perhaps a little uneventful coming on the heels of two issues of downtime with Harley, but a quick run through Selina's relations with the rest of the Bat-family isn't a bad thing to do every once in a while, and Sami Basri's Selina is wonderfully characterful and dynamic

Tini Howard does slightly forgettable work in this issue, but Caitlin Yarsky is a revelation and carried this issue herself. Add a promising cliffhanger, and on balance this issue was good enough.

Hmm. I've greatly enjoyed Howard's run thus far, but happy as I am to see Eiko as Catwoman again, IDK if this new direction is clicking for me yet. Nothing about "antihero survives in prison" feels fresh or original, and the whole thing descends quickly into generic tropes. The issue isn't without its charm and Basri's art is good, but it never quite comes together into something compelling. A big step down for this title.

Nice to see Leon back on art, but this storyline definitely has me more interested in Eiko, Onyx & Dario than Selina, whose motivations in the current arc seem to change in response to little more than the demands of the plot. So far I'm really feeling like the Selina-in-prison direction was a misstep and I'm pretty ready for it to end

The prison arc picks up nicely at its end, but ultimately didn't add up to much as a whole and I'm glad to be seeing the back of it. (Also, weird marketing choice to advertise a Catwoman/Punchline fight on the cover of an issue that didn't even have Punchline but not mention it five months later when they actually do fight.)

Hm. Uneven, but not unpromising, as far as comics that set up shop squarely in the shadow of Watchmen go. Some of these concepts have aged well and some are awkwardly out of place in a modern story, but notable successes include a Warlord with big Hot Daddy vibes and The Creeper and the Green Team in a plot that feels very Mark Russell. Fornes's art is lovely and carries the book when the writing doesn't. This book's got me for now

Remains wildly uneven. Sometimes it's full of intriguing new ideas for the forgotten characters from 1st Issue Special, and sometimes Darkseid's a hugger. Fornes is wonderful throughout.

Great art and lots of vague ideas that are interesting, but nothing so far to convince me why I care. The evil Green Team, for instance, feels like something Mark Russell would do, but there's none of the depth or insight to the anticapitalist themes that Russell would bring, they're just bad kids with money being confronted by one-dimensional antiheroes. Maybe I'll feel different when I see where this is going, but a third of the way in I'm still waiting on the promise of this series to feel like anything more than promise.

Great art and some very effective story beats, but I'm still not convinced I care about most of these characters and their Watchmenized stories. There's enough to like that I wish I did, though

Say what you will about multi-month delays while the artist catches up, I'll take them over jarring tone shifts like this

Anyway, I hear superhero comics are too "woke" now

OK enough depth and meaning, it's the 90s now here's the Punisher

By far the worst of the early 90s' many attempts to replicate the success of the Death of Superman, this story has six million moving parts and not a one of them is interesting. And in the end, the rebirth of Daredevil's secret identity happens as a result of a minor subplot wholly unrelated to the main plot and the decision to abandon his life as Matt Murdock (which Chichester had mostly been ignoring for the previous two years) happens in just a few pages with no particular drama or occasion beyond a clumsy, fanfic-y return to a Born Again plot — hardly a comparison it seems wise to invite. The ostensible purpose of this arc feels so perfunctory and grafted on that I assume Marvel's legendary mid-90's editorial chaos was involved, but the truth is the rest of the story is just a lot of people shouting at one another about a macguffin for six issues, so it's easy to see where an editor would want something more interesting for the 325th issue in the era where foil covers came every 25 issues. On the upside, McDaniel's art throughout this was really quite stunning. A great comic to look at, even when it's a chore to read.

Mostly dreadful, but that 12-panel grid on the bomb defusing sequence was solid

Karen Page: I am looking to hire a private investigator *some guy she's never met kicks in her door and shoots a cockroach* Karen Page: Whoa that was the most private investigator shit I've ever seen, you're hired

A young Warren Ellis and a small crowd of clearly overtaxed artists keep the transition away from Chichester from feeling too abrupt by turning in an story as edgy as it is absolutely incoherent

For the first issue of their brief run, DeMatties & Wagner got stuck servicing a crossover to kick off the ill-starred Marvel Edge line and have to focus on a plot about Nick Fury and the Punisher that has nothing to do with Daredevil himself. But they took this unpromising remit and gave it more class and feeling than it had any right to, and they even managed to tidily set up the themes of their run without making the seams between their plot and the editorially-mandated one too obvious. It's nothing classic, but after slogging through 50 largely skippable issues an issue that's well-made is a breath of fresh air

The 80's and 90's produced plenty of trans woman serial killers to give your series of grisly killings that exotic twist while reaffirming that queerness and gender variance are bad and scary, but this is the only time I recall seeing it done with a trans man

And then DeMatties is gone midway through his sixth issue. That's mid-90's Marvel for you.

Who is that random woman and why is she dressed like the Black Widow?